Of all the food sources toxic molds feed on, none is more daunting for homeowners to control than damp wallboard.

But some new wallboard provides a surprisingly simple answer: remove the food, remove the mold.

That's the thinking behind the residential rollout of inorganic paperless wallboard that denies mold spores a toehold on the edible surface the fungi is notorious for colonizing.

The "paper" is instead fiberglass mats atop the usual gypsum core. Gone, too, are mold-friendly starches used to bind paper to the gypsum. The paperless wallboard proved its mettle in commercial settings, and is now showing up in residential construction.

"It's really all about removing the food source," says Barry Reid of Georgia Pacific, maker of the paperless wallboard called DensGuard. "Once the paper is gone, mold has nowhere to go. It can't eat fiberglass mats."

Even if storm waters don't penetrate a house, air conditioners and dehumidifiers shut down by electricity loss can create ideal conditions of heat and humidity to trigger mold growth.

Otherwise, this new wallboard can be primed and painted like other drywall. Reid suggests the user can make walls completely inorganic by substituting fiberglass mesh tape in place of paper-based tape on wall seams.

A check of wallboard pricing shows a 4-by-8-foot sheet of 3/8 inch thick wallboard costs about $7. DensGuard Plus adds $2 to $3 more per sheet, so if the homeowner occasionally replaces water damaged wallboard, the price impact could be worth it.

AP

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